I’m writing from a hotel in Milford, Ohio, just outside Cincinnati.
Made excellent progress this week by staying on roads, and, as a bonus for avoiding the Buckeye Trail, passed through a bunch of sweet little Ohio towns. Bought a Dr. Pepper in Locust Grove, where the population of the pretty hilltop cemetary is certainly larger than that of its still-vertical citizens. Decatur has a nice little park with a gazebo, and claims to be “Home of Sam Cooper, World Arm Wrestling Champion.” Georgetown, birthplace of Ulysses S. Grant, has lots of Civil War era homes along its shady main street. Williamsburg was big enough to have a chirpractor and a tatoo parlor, and is home to two “cafes,” neither of which serves food. Walked into Williamsburg looking for dinner last night and drew the hostile stares of beer drinkers at the cafes in my hunt for someplace to eat. Eventually found Mama’s Grill on the other side of town, which served only Coca Cola products and sweet iced tea.
Got caught in my first gullywasher rainstorm this week. I’ve been sprinkled on a few times before, but never seriously. On Tuesday I was walking from Russellville to Georgetown and the sky got blacker and blacker, and the wind picked up briskly, so I started looking for someplace along the road to hole up away from the storm that was certainly headed my way. Just in time I found a garage under construction and dashed inside. The rain pounded down for about an hour while I napped sprawled atop my pack. Nothing short of the building being carried away by a tornado could have kept me awake!
People I meet along the way ask the same set of questions: Where did you come from? How long have you been walking? Why are you doing this? How much does your pack weigh? Are you ever bothered by dogs?
I am chased by dogs every day, often a dozen times a day, but I’ve never been bitten, or ever really worried about being bitten. There’s a lot about this world I don’t understand, but I actually do understand dogs. When they come racing out from under the front porch to bark and snarl at me, they’re just defending their homes. They don’t want to hurt me, they just want me to go away.
I see the same behavior in our own dogs at home. When somebody rings the doorbell they holler and carry on until we can reassure them that the visitor is welcome. They would never bite anybody; they’re just acting like dogs.
So I assume that the dogs that are chasing me down the road will give up as soon as I cross their property line, and that assumption has proven true except in two instances. In the first I stopped by a little house in an Ohio hollow to refill my water bottle. The black mutt on the front porch barked ferociously until the lady inside calmed him down. After she had refilled my bottle I started walking and the dog followed me. I kept trying to shoo him away, but he tagged along even as we got farther and farther from his home. In about three miles I came to a farm with a whole pack of dogs that started chasing me until they saw my new dog friend. Then the pack of dogs accomplished what I could not, and sent him running for home. The other instance happened yesterday, when I was attacked by this little terrier who didn’t understand that he was just supposed to bark at me. When he actually tried to bite me I whacked him in the snoot with my map, and he retreated.
And I must confess that I’m glad the four German Shepherds that came after me this morning were stopped by a fence. My assumption about the fundamental goodwill of dogs has held up so far, but I didn’t want those brutes to test it!
Buying new boots has not cured my recent blister problems. They are flaring up a bit, so I got off the trail today at the first civilized hotel I spotted, to give my barking dogs a chance to calm down before I walk through Cincinnati and into Indiana in the next couple of days.
